Company-paid junkets to India, Las Vegas and Russia for writers covering the game scene?

Apparently so.

In the Washington Post, reporter Mike Musgrove returns from a Fallout 3 press event near D.C. with a report on the shaky state of today's video game journalism.

While newspapers as well as some print mags and websites will typically not allow writers to accept company-paid travel, such rules are often non-existent for other publications and online outlets. The WaPo article quotes Bethesda PR exec Pete Hines:

What we're trying to accomplish with an event like this is to have the undivided attention of the important people in our industry, that cover the industry. There are a lot of titles out there competing for attention.

In Gaming Today, Shawn Sines, who also writes for the Columbus Dispatch, comments:

Coming from a traditional news background I often turn my nose up ethically when I hear of these things but the rules are very different with Web based media or video-game magazines where the advertising and editorial content is so closely dependent on exclusives and advertising deals.

While I’m not saying companies buy positive reviews from these companies you won’t find The New York Times or Newsweek visiting one of these events on a publisher's dime because of the implications of influence..

Most legitimate gaming journalists and editors are above allowing advertisers to unduly influence their editorial content or so we’d all like to believe.